Wednesday, September 01, 2010

AN HOMAGE TO STAGE MOTHERS

Stage mothers really have a bad rep, but is it deserved? I'm not so sure.  The fact is that an awful lot of talented people in the past started doing what they were famous for when they were five, if not sooner.  Think of Buster Keaton who lived his whole life on the stage and in front of the camera. Look at what he achieved. Could he have done that if he'd started at age 23 like college grads do today? 






Of course, starting early requires focus and that requires a pushy adults. Ditto for getting good work habits. That's why we need stage mothers.  You don't want a mother who nags, and bullies, but you do want one that pushes you.  I'm not talking about school work, I'm limiting this discussion to  professions like music and dancing, auto mechanics, art, etc which can be learned by watching skilled people and practicing, which is the natural way that kids learn. 


A few stage mothers in the entertainment industry are famous, and so far as I know were loved by their children: Minnie Marx, mother-manager of The Marx Brothers;  Jaid Barrymore, mother of Drew; Gertrude Temple, who managed Shirley and spent hours every day curling her kid's hair; and Judy Garland's mom Ethel Gumm, just to name a few.  Where did this myth come from that all stage mothers are evil (Gary Goldman's dad, notwithstanding)?

























Stage mothers of the world, this toast is for you.  You gave your kids the gift of a trade, of a chance to  practice their profession while they were still young enough to innovate and develop a passion for it.  Good for you!






Er...is that woman above really female? She looks a little odd. 



I couldn't resist throwing this in (above): Judy Garland singing "Texas Tornado" in a completely professional manner when she was only 14.  She could do that because her mother arranged for her to learn how to sing while she was still in the egg shell.



Haw! Stephen Rodgers' ably answered my argument with this song (above) by Noel Coward.  I have to admit that it makes a powerful argument, but I'm not ready to admit defeat. I was hoping to score on a larger point, namely that people nowadays begin careers too late in life.

To make a big impact you have to start early, so you can turn professional when you're young enough to pour lots of energy and idealism into what you do.  Stage mothers add a bit of balance to a school system that wastes youth.

I wish we still had Vaudeville, or an updated version of it. Talentless performers would get weeded out pretty fast if they had to play  before live audiences that paid for their tickets.

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:33 AM

    Eddie, I was listening to this clip of Judy Garland singing the Benny Goodman classic (Bob Crosby and his Orchestra were actually backing up Garland in that recording) "Stompin at the Savoy," and it blew me away that a 14-year old could already sing like a professional at that time period. I was just amazed as you are now for the most part.

    I wonder if Margaret O'Brien, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor or Dean Stockwell also had stage mothers like the Marx Bros. and Shirley Temple did. I never really hear about them, but I am aware of these great actors' work.

    Anyways, thanks for the homage to stage mothers post. I never really thought about the hard work they must have put in to raise their children damn right. Buster Keaton is one of my favorite comedic actors of that era by the way, so it was a delight to see you mention him. Very under appreciated for sure.

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  2. even if they don't qualify as "stage moms" it's certainly important for a kid's talents and creativity to be encouraged and nurtured by parents and other sympathetic adults. I know I'm grateful for all the encouragement and guidance I received from my parents and teachers who saw latent talent somewhere inside that goofy little kid I use to be. :-) example: having parents willing to pay for private art lessons from when I was seven, even when they probably couldn't really afford it, was pretty cool of them.

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  3. Stage brothers, too -- or whatever the equivalent is: Sydney Chaplin, Danny Simon, Roy Disney Sr., etc.

    BTW, the quintessential "pushy stage mother" appears in a classic Little Rascals comedy called Beginner's Luck (1935). She gets her comeuppance at the end though, and how...

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  4. I wish I had a stage mother, instead I have to push myself.

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  5. Anonymous9:22 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDAJxazhZvM

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  6. Mike: "Beginner's Luck!?" sounds great. I'll see if YouTube has it.

    Stephen: Thanks! I added your link together with a comment to the article!

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  7. Anonymous2:49 AM

    Off topic: Hey Eddie, have you checked out this new cartoon short yet.

    http://www.cartoonbrew.com/brewtv/slimpickings.html

    If you haven't, PLEASE go watch it right now. It's a very cartoony and fun homage to Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Chuck Jones rolled into about seven minutes or so. I was astounded by how well drawn, colored, and animated it is, and the most surprising thing is that animation students drew this. Those guys have talent for sure.

    Thanks for updating the post, by the way. The second song is great, has a nice melody, and makes a good point at the same time, unlike most forms of music today, which for me, are mostly badly written sung. I agree with your last point, which is why I'm practicing as much as I can right now at my young age, so I'll be a great cartoonist when I'm older.

    Here's the song I was talking about in my first comment if you didn't look that up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiMykEc5qzI

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  8. The 'woman' whose gender you questioned is in fact Matt Lucas of "Little Britain" fame. I don't know who the character is that he's portraying in the picture, but the other person is more clearly his comedy partner David Wailliams.

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  9. Oh, should have included this in my last post. Here is the same Matt Lucas singing a song, about a baked potato...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPVH9Bhj5qg&feature

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  10. Anonymous7:52 PM

    Hi Eddie,

    Actually, I just suggested the Coward song because it's about the perils of stage mothers. I agree with you about their virtues, though; heck, even Coward would never have enjoyed his phenomenal successes had his mother not pushed him from a very young age. I think he appeared as one of the Lost Boys in "Peter Pan" at the age of 7, and never looked back. From what I've read, he was very good friends with Judy Garland, and I imagine it's that shared experience that cemented their friendship.

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  11. Anonymous11:41 AM

    A friend showed me LITTLE BRITAIN one weekend (funny stuff, but a penpal in England said she doesn't like the show at all - simply lewd and perhaps Americanized humour was her theory).

    The couple above includes Walliams (left) and as a woman Matt Lucas -elsewhere on your blog I think. they portray a lot of lady characters. Lucas had a voice in the Burton "retelling" of Alice In Wonderland; Walliams had a very small cameo in a Simon Pegg film 1 1/2 years ago.

    SB

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